ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE The drama begins. Pharaoh and the Egyptians are smitten by the plagues. Blood, Frogs, Lice, Pestilence, Boils and the rest. But Pharaoh’s heart is hard and he doesn’t let the Israelites go. What is significant about the first three plagues – the water of the River Nile turning to blood, the frogs jumping out of the river and invading the country and the eruption of lice from the ground – is that it is Aaron, rather than Moses, who holds out his staff over the river and later smites the ground that brings the plagues. The explanation...
WHY MOSHE? Open a Jewish Encyclopedia and you will find many individuals, over the course of Jewish history, who are called Moshe. Look more carefully, and you will see that apart from the first Moshe or Moses, the name doesn’t occur again for more than two thousand years. It seems that for a long time, Jews were reluctant to call another person by the name of our greatest leader and saviour. So what are the origins of this name? According to this week’s parasha, Pharaoh’s daughter names the baby she rescues from the Nile as Moshe, Ki Min HaMayim Meshitihu...
THE PATRIARCH, PELE, AND THE POPE. From opposite sides of the world, tens of thousands of people have been paying their tributes this week to mourn the deaths of Pope Benedict XVI and football legend Pelé. Both the Vila Belmiro Stadium in Santos, Brazil, and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome were thronged as the faithful came by to pay their respects. The man of a 1000 goals was buried in a simple funeral on Tuesday and Benedict is due to be buried on Thursday with the full ritual accorded to a former pontiff. Both men were internationally known to millions...
REVERED OR REVILED The blurb on Niall Ferguson’s biography of Henry Kissinger (Volume I: The Idealist, 1923-1968) reads: “No American statesman has been as revered or as reviled as Henry Kissinger. “Once hailed as ‘Super K – the indispensable man’ whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama – he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists…” Despite having arrived in the USA in 1938, Henry Kissinger, to this day, sounds like an outsider. His Jewish-German origins are unmistakable, both to his credit and potential misfortune. In last week’s parasha, Pharaoh chose Joseph to manage his...
CHANUKAH POWER The festival of Chanukah commemorates the military victory of the Maccabees over the vastly superior Greek army as well as the miracle of the jug of oil in the Temple, with the seal of the High Priest, which miraculously lasted for eight days, instead of just one. The great Chassidic leader, Rabbi Levi Yitchak of Berditchev (1740-1810) poses a fundamental question: Why did our Sages institute a holiday to recall these miracles when there were so many others that we experienced in our history? The Bible describes many miraculous military victories. For example, in Book of Judges...
